In the Bible, Babel is where human languages all got scrambled.
In New Jersey, “babble” is what happens when we talk to cats.
And at Tabby’s Place, Babs is all ears for all manner of grammar.
If you have spent any time with cats, you know the limits of language. You quickly abandon all attempts to remain articulate.
One moment, you are smiling in the eyes of a tabby, just one dignified creature communicating with another.
But, before you can form the words, “you, Babs Rosenberg, are an honorable fellow traveler on the high road of life,” all your syllables and syntax melt into marshmallow stew.
You are lucky if you can muster, “Babba dabba squabba yabba, are you my little Jabba the Hutt?”
And, doesn’t it always end in a question mark? It is never, “You are my puddin’ pop.” It is always, “Are you my puddin’ pop?” or “Who’s my puddin’ pop?”
Someone at MIT or Carnegie Mellon should commission a study into why cats reduce us to a puddle of rhetorical questions. Actually, they tried to do such a study, but since cats were involved, the greatest minds of our generation ended up on the floor, yammering, “Who’s my rooty-tooty rutabaga?” and “Are you my widdy biddy pastina?”
Maybe we should get the theologians involved.
Do cats turn us into tapioca because we are in the presence of grandeur? We are too awestruck to remain coherent. Perhaps the honest answer to anything so majestic as a cat is more questions. Perhaps, the best response to green eyes that see us as we are and choose us anyway is wobbly balderdash.
Maybe even angels end up on the floor, cooing, “Are you my teeny weeny St. Jerome?” and “Who’s my cherubby bubby?”
But, even when we turn into towers of babble, the cats remain clear. They are pillars of perception, not easily scattered. They need no Rosetta stone to translate our gibberish.
And this goes double for the dumpling who is the jewel of our goulash: Babs.
Babs came into Tabby’s Place talking. Just one day earlier, she’d thought she had all the answers. She had a person who loved her, and the language of habits and home. Routine is a strong tower. Ordinary time is sacred, precisely because it is stable.
But, in a matter of hours, chaos confounded her comforts. It was as though a mighty wind toppled her fortress.
Now, she was in some strange chariot, rolling down the road to a future she did not choose. Babs had many questions. She meowed each one aloud. Emphasis on loud. Every mile of the ride from home to the unknown, she bombarded heaven, or at least the back headrests of her new companions. Her drivers report that Babs scarcely came up for air.
But you cannot just tell a cat, “everything is about to become okay again.” We humans tend to slather on the syllables, but cats can only speak “time.” From Babel to New Jersey, we have expected too much from our own murmurings. Meanwhile, the cats are listening to life itself.
And life speaks slowly, unconcerned for our impatience. We rushed to reassure Babs that she was loved and safe, and that there were stinky sardines at the end of the car ride, and also that she was our little cannoli ravioli genius beenius.
Babs hissed, huddled, and hid from our prose like a horror novel about fake bacon.
She did not hear our words over the pounding over her own broken heart.
Yet where language hits its limits, a single chin skritch speaks. There is poetry in the soft hand not scared by snarls and hisses. There is a Psalm at the bottom of every dish of salmon from a stranger with kind eyes.
Babs’ frenzied fear could not convince any of these cooing goo-heads to go away. She realized she was stuck with this cast of caramelized admirers. She would have to learn to live with all of our adoring inquiries into who is our little swirly twirly whirly girl, and who wants some jammin’ slammin’ salmony salmon.
We may not sound like the greatest minds of our generation, but Babs had to admit: it does sound like we’re on her side.
And day by day, dish by dish, together we’re translating time into truth: Babs is safe, and this time it will last forever.
Who’s our little multilingual jingle bell, our gabby Babby poet queen?
It’s the girl who listens long enough to hear love beneath the Babel.
Maybe there are answers to our questions after all.